64 Psyche [June 



HEMIPTEROLOGICAL NOTES. 



By H. M. Parshley. 

 Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 



Anasa repetita Heidemami. 



On September 19, 1917 at Northampton, Mass., I found thi» 

 species in large numbers feeding on the Star-cucumber, Sicyos 

 angulatus Linn. More than fifty examples, both adults and 

 nymphs, were taken on two vines. The rarity of the species in 

 collections is undoubtedly due to the fact that its food-plant has 

 been unknown to collectors. I noted one example of Anasa 

 armigera Say on the same plant and another in flight nearby. 



Melanolestes picipes var. abdominalis Herrich-Schaeffer. 



The forms of this Reduviid which exhibit more or less red on the 

 abdomen are usually considered to constitute a distinct species, 

 M. abdominalis, as originally described by Herrich-Schaeffer, 

 although there seem to be no structural criteria to separate the two. 

 StaP treated abdominalis as a color variety (var. b) of picipes, but 

 Uhler^ felt that the evidence at his command did not warrant his 

 merging them, since he never found the two forms united in copu- 

 lation though both often occured under the same stone. I have 

 in my collection examples showing all gradations from those 

 having only the slightest tinge of red along the connexivum to 

 those having the abdomen entirely red ; I have also a pair taken in 

 copulation (Framingham, Mass., C. A. Frost) in which the male is 

 an entirely black long-winged picipes and the female a short- 

 winged abdominalis, with red connexivum. It would seem there- 

 fore that the abdominalis form should be ranked as a mere color 

 variety and not as a species distinct from picipes, as I have done 

 in my New England list. 



The consideration of this case brings up the matter of color 

 varieties and subspecific forms in general. In the study of some 

 groups of insects, notably ants, the subdivisions of species are 

 treated according to a definite system based on a relatively com- 



' Enum. Hem. 2, 1872, p. 107. 



»Heni. west of Mississippi River, Bull. U. S. Geol. & Geog. Surv. Terr., II., No. 5, 1876, p. 330. 



